Inspection widens in search for accomplices in London attack

LONDON

Counterterrorism investigators searched two homes yesterday and detained “a number” of people in the investigation into a van and knife attack in the heart of London that left seven people dead.

Dozens were injured, 21 of them critically, in the attack. The three attackers, who wore fake suicide vests, were shot to death by police. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levnat (ISIL) has claimed responsibility. London’s police chief has said the attackers have been identified, but the names have not been released.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told Sky News yesterday that she would not release further details in what she described as a fast-moving investigation, not would she say whether authorities were familiar with the men ahead of the attack.

The three attacks carried out by Islamist militants in Britain in the last three months have been largely domestic plots and the majority of the threat facing the country is not directed from overseas, Dick told BBC radio.

“All the recent attacks I think have a primarily domestic center of gravity,” she said. 

“There are in the five that we have foiled and these three recent attacks, in some of them there are undoubtedly international dimensions. We will always be looking to see if anything has been directed from overseas but I would say the majority of the threat that we are facing at the moment does not appear to be directed from overseas.” 

Prime Minister Theresa May warned that the country faced a new threat from copycat attacks.

The country’s major political parties temporarily suspended campaigning with only days to go before the general election. May said the vote would take place as scheduled on June 8 because “violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process.”